


Signs

by HK44



Category: Original Work
Genre: Anger, Light Angst, M/M, Rants
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-18
Updated: 2017-11-18
Packaged: 2019-02-03 20:21:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,050
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12755508
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HK44/pseuds/HK44
Summary: Matt pressed his face into the table. His typewriter sat in front him, the letter beside it.Even with his eyes closed, he could see it so clearly. It burned across the back of his eyelids.





	Signs

**Author's Note:**

> Tiny drabble from my completely historically inaccurate story to be written sometime after I get all the others out of the way.

_Dear Matthew Hurnell,_

Matt pressed his face into the table. His typewriter sat in front him, the letter beside it.

The letter with the big, fat bright  _red_ REJECTED notice on it.

Even with his eyes closed, he could see it so clearly. It  _burned_  across the back of his eyelids, practically screaming at him with the angry colour.

_We regret to inform you_

And Charlie had just signed on with Hollistics Comics. Charlie.  _Rickle_. Charlie who drew the same thing that all the other artists in the world drew. Scantily clad women with bulbous breasts and hulking man-beasts with abs the size of their biceps.

Charlie Rickle.

An average  _fucking_  dick.

And Matt was…

He was going nowhere fast.

_that while we enjoyed the premise of your story, it was far too lengthy and overdone._

Years he’d worked at this.  _Years_  of his life, of his childhood,  _wasted_. And Charlie had done what? Two years in university? He had’t even graduated! He had no degree! He had nothing and yet  _he got the deal_?

_Furthermore, we found your characters to be lacking the qualities we would prefer to be represented in our comics_

Lacking in what? Sexualization? BDSM hints? Woman draped across sexy machinery in skin-tight shorts while they discussed the finer issues of  _plot_? With bulbous men who lacked the finer graces of proper emotions gazed out into the distance and made plans to ruin another day with an ill-conceived plot that  _obviously_  would fail?

_and the plot to be slightly lackluster. However, we do_

He wasn’t asking for much. Just  _something_ , something that let him pay the bills, let him pay his mama’s medication without having to succumb his weak knees and back to construction.

Something that didn’t have him on his knees, grovelling to some pale man in a suit that cost more than what Matt paid for  _rent_.

_look forward to future submissions when the time arises._

And why for the love of  _God,_  did it have to be Charlie Rickle? Anyone else would’ve been fine. Anyone else would’ve been great. But Charlie stirred up Matt’s insides like hell fire.

His beady eyes.

The way he pronounced Massachusetts.

The fact that he’d found success  _in nothing_. What was art anyway? Two minutes to stare at a stupid page? One second to look at a naked woman with apples in her hand?

Matt didn’t even read comics for the art, he read it for the words splattered there on the page, in the bubble, in the sidelines, in the translation notes of foreign tongue.

_when the time arises_

Who even looked at a painting anymore?

Who even had time!

_We hope_

Why couldn’t he just  _make_  it already? Why did he have to shell out his life for a worthless endeavor?

 _Years_  developing his skill, years developing his sentences, his paragraphs, and for what? Thousands of dollars in debt with no money for rent and no jobs on the horizon and Beatrice’s eyes looking shifty as she laughed around the possibility of ever stooping so low as to be a stripper or a prostitute just to make decent wages?

He slammed his fist against the table.

His glass of water dropped, splattering his face and letter as the once-contained liquid pooled over his hand.

He pulled back, grabbing his spare sheets of paper and dropping them against the puddle. What good were they for anyway? Who  _read_  anymore? Who cared! Words took too long anyway. To come, to process, to understand.

A picture could tell a thousand stories, wasn’t that the saying anyway? So what was the point of  _writing_ when a pretty picture could do it so much better?

He sagged against his chair. In front of him the typewriter gleamed in the sunshine. The cracks against it’s sides, the scrapes, the bruises, all of the wear-and-tear shone at him.

Like mockery.

_We hope_

_We hope_

He pushed his feet up against the edge of the table, his chair tipping back until it hit the wall. The table teetered ominously.

_We hope you take our advice_

He gave a little shove. The table teeter against, the typewriter shaking.

_We hope you take our advice in stride_

Years of his life  _wasted_  for something he thought would be  _fun_. Artists had fun, didn’t they? 

_We hope you take our advice in stride and_

Why couldn’t he have fun?

_We hope you take our advice in stride and work on developing_

He’d be stuck working dead-end jobs for the rest of his life, if he was lucky. If he wasn’t, he’d be grateful enough for someone clean and handsome to be willing to hand over a pretty penny for his pathetic ass

_work on developing_

Meanwhile, Charlie would probably be making a living off his art. Comics, freelancing, marketing. And no one would even notice how identical it all looked to everything else.

_work on developing your skills._

What skills? Ten years of his life and he hadn’t even mastered a single  _cent_  for his works.

 _You show great promise_.

Matt gave another weak push.

 _great promise_.

That was a teacher’s comment

_Sincerely, Alice Bojankles_

He pushed.

And everything went crashing down.

Sean flashed into view before him, grabbing at his wrist. “Are you okay? What happened?”

Matt looked over his shoulder at the mess before him. Slowly, he eased down until the chair legs clattered against the floor and stood quietly, stepping around Sean and his concerned eyes. His rejection letter was still stuck to the table. His comic had landed open, water beading from the spill right onto it. His sandwich, half-eaten and cold, was on top of it, easing grease into the pages.

And his typewriter was fine.

Sunshine slipped in through the window over the sink and lit it aglow, soft hues of yellow and gold brushing over it’s worn down plates. The page he’d slotted into hadn’t torn but had stayed stuck in place, waiting for the ink to press against it.

Matt’s shoulders sagged.

“Do you believe in signs?” he asked, pinching the bride of his nose and feeling fifty years older.

Sean wrapped his arms around Matt’s waist and nuzzle his neck. “Only the good ones, sweetheart,” he murmured. “Why?”

Matt sighed and leaned against Sean’s warm chest. “No reason.”

**Author's Note:**

> Was this me being salty and emoting through an OC? A little bit. Does that make me terrible? I dunno.


End file.
